5 Most Brutal Medieval Execution Methods JJ

Throughout the medieval period, someone could find themselves being executed for a huge number of reasons. Inside medieval England, thousands of people suffered a brutal demise as local authorities condemned them. In this video, we look at five of the medieval period’s worst execution methods. Among the many execution methods employed in medieval and early modern Europe, few inspired as much dread as the breaking wheel.

Known variously as wheel breaking or breaking on the wheel, this punishment was not merely a means of killing a condemned person. It was a deliberately engineered process of prolonged suffering, public humiliation, and moral theater intended to demonstrate the absolute power of the state and to terrify all who witnessed it.

The breaking wheel stands apart from other execution methods precisely because it was designed not to end lives swiftly, but to destroy the human body slowly and visibly, often over the course of hours or even days. Unlike hanging or beheading, which could result in relatively rapid death if performed correctly, the breaking wheel was constructed around the principle of delaying mortality.

The victim was typically bound to a low wooden scaffold or platform, often stripped naked or left partially clothed to heighten vulnerability and shame. The executioner then used a heavy wooden or iron wheel, sometimes the rim of a cartwheel, to deliver a sequence of crushing blows to the body. These strikes were not random.

In many jurisdictions, particularly in parts of Germany and France, execution manuals specified the precise order and placement of each blow. The executioner began with the lower limbs, smashing the ankles, shins, and knees before moving upwards to the thighs, arms, shoulders, and finally the torso. This methodical progression was intentional.

By avoiding the head, heart, and vital organs in the early stages, the executioner ensured that the condemned remained conscious and alive throughout most of their ordeal. Each strike shattered major bones, tore muscles and connective tissue, ruptured blood vessels, and inflicted unbearable pain. Contemporary descriptions frequently likened the victims to bags of broken bones.

Their bodies still intact, but utterly destroyed in function. Unlike amputation or decapitation, where pain might end quickly, the breaking wheel caused suffering that accumulated with every blow, with no opportunity for the body to recover or adapt. Death, when it finally came, was rarely immediate. Victims often succumbed hours later to shock, internal bleeding, or organ failure.

In some documented cases, the condemned survived for two to three days after the execution itself, their shattered bodies left exposed to the elements. Dehydration, infection, and exposure frequently hastened the end. The agony, however, did not cease simply because the executioner had finished his task. The brutality of the breaking wheel extended beyond physical pain into the realms of psychological torture.

The condemned person was fully aware of what awaited them. Public executions were widely advertised, and the breaking wheel’s reputation was very well known. Victims were forced to lie helpless as they watched the executioner raise the wheel for each blow, knowing exactly where it would land next. The anticipation of pain became a torment in itself, compounded by the presence of a large crowd gathered to observe the spectacle.

Public participation was a central element of the punishment. Execution squares were often packed with spectators, and in some regions the crowds were encouraged to shout insults, curses, or moral condemnations at the condemned. In societies where honor, reputation, and social standing carried immense weight, this public degradation was devastating.

The breaking wheel stripped the victim not only of their physical integrity, but also of their dignity and identity. It reduced them to a cautionary display, a living warning of the consequences of defying the law. The punishment did not necessarily end with death. In many cases, once the victim finally expired or was nearing death, their body was woven through the spokes of the wheel, and then mounted atop a pole, gibbet, or scaffold.

Sometimes the executioner delivered a final mercy blow to the chest or neck to hasten death, but this was not guaranteed. Whether dead or dying, the body was then left on public display, often at crossroads or city gates, where it would be seen by travelers and locals alike. This postmortem display was deliberately an extension of the punishment.

Corpses were left exposed for weeks, slowly decomposing in full view of the public. Birds pecked at the flesh, bones bleached in the sun, and the wheel itself became a permanent reminder of the state’s power. In this way, the breaking wheel asserted control not only over life and death, but over the body even after death had occurred.

The extreme nature of the punishment meant that it was typically reserved for crimes considered especially heinous or socially destabilizing. This included aggravated murder, highway robbery, treason, parricide, and infanticide. Such crimes were viewed not merely as individual transgressions, but as threats to the moral and social order itself.

The punishment was therefore intended to mirror the perceived horror of the crime. In the logic of early modern justice, a brutal crime demanded a brutal response, and mercy was seen as weakness rather than virtue. Medical and anatomical knowledge, limited though it was, made the breaking wheel even more horrifying.

By the 16th and 17th centuries, experienced executioners understood enough about the human body to prolong suffering deliberately. They knew how to shatter limbs without killing outright, and how to avoid fatal blows until the sentence required it. In some jurisdictions, an executioner who killed a condemned person too quickly could be fined or punished for incompetence.

Efficiency in this context meant maximizing suffering while adhering strictly to the prescribed ritual. Despite its acceptance within the legal systems of the time, the breaking wheel was deeply disturbing, even to contemporary observers. Chroniclers and eyewitness accounts describe victims screaming till their voices failed, the sound of bones cracking echoing across town squares, and spectators fainting or turning away in horror.

While crowds gathered in large numbers, not all did so with enthusiasm. The execution provoked fear as much as fascination, reinforcing the message that the state’s authority was absolute and merciless. By the late 18th century, changing attitudes towards justice began to challenge such spectacles of cruelty.

Enlightenment thinkers increasingly argued that punishments should be rational, humane, and also proportionate. The breaking wheel came to be cited as an example of barbaric excess, incompatible with emerging ideas about human dignity and the role of the state. As legal reforms spread across Europe, the punishment was gradually abolished.

France formerly ended its use in 1789 during the French Revolution, whilst most German states followed in the early 19th century. In retrospect, the breaking wheel represents a justice system fundamentally different from modern conceptions of law and punishment. It was not designed to rehabilitate or even merely to execute, but to terrify, humiliate, and dominate.

Its brutality lay not only in the pain it inflicted, but in its careful orchestration of suffering as public spectacle. It was an execution method that sought to break the body, the spirit, and the collective memory of all who witnessed it. The breaking wheel endures in history as a stark and dark reminder of how power once manifested itself through pain, and how justice, when fused with spectacle and fear, could become an instrument of extreme and calculated cruelty.

>> To be hanged, drawn, and quartered was a very serious punishment and possibly one of the most brutal administered in history. The punishment was seen as adequate justice for the attack on the authority of the English monarchy, and for this, the most extreme form of punishment was used. Treason as a crime had a rather wide meaning for the kings and queens who felt threatened during the medieval, Tudor, and following eras.

Henry VIII, for example, believed that simply the death of a monarch was enough for someone to be condemned for this, and he had Elizabeth Barton, a woman who did this, executed for treason. But there were accounts during the Elizabethan period of a number of treasonous plots against the Tudor queen.

And because of this, scores of men were executed being hanged, drawn, and quartered following the plans to put Mary Queen of Scots on the throne in schemes such as the Babington plot. Hanging, drawing, and quartering, in its simplest form, was an execution method that used a number of different stages, aimed to inflict great pain and suffering, but also aimed to shock the public.

The point of this was to get the public to fall into line, and if they saw a brutal execution, they would be less likely to commit crimes such as treason because of it. The first part was the drawing, in which a prisoner would be collected from their place of incarceration, and then attached using a hurdle or a wooden frame.

They would be tied to this, and then would be attached to the back of a horse, who would draw them through the streets. Sometimes a prisoner would not be tied to the wooden frame, and their head would bash against the cobbled streets, and they could also slip from the frame, and this would cause pain. They were paraded throughout the streets, where the public would often throw things and shout obscenities their way, before they were taken to a place of execution.

They would be then handed over to an executioner, would be hanged from a gallows or a wooden frame until they were almost dead. If someone passed out, they would be revived, and some executionists to inflict more suffering would then hang them again. After this, the person was then disemboweled and emasculated, with their entrails pulled out, and then burned in front of them on a fire.

Obviously, this could easily kill, but often condemned individuals were forced to watch their parts being burned in front of them. They were then beheaded using an axe, and their body was cut into four pieces, with these being sent to different places in the country to be displayed, to act as a gory reminder of the people to behave themselves.

Heads were also displayed in prominent places such as London Bridge after the execution. During the 13th and 14th century in England, those who were found guilty of treason were punished in many different ways, including drawing and hanging, but also more brutal ways such as beheading, disemboweling, and even burning were used.

It was said in the 13th century that a man who plotted and attempted to kill King Henry III was dragged asunder then beheaded and his body divided into three parts. Each part was then dragged through one of the principal cities of England and afterwards hung on a gibbet used for robbers. The first recorded examples of hanging, drawing, and quartering were used during the reign of Edward I.

Dafydd ap Gruffydd turned against Edward I and declared himself the Prince of Wales and for this he was captured and then sentenced to what we would regard as high treason. Because of this, Dafydd was drawn through the streets of Shrewsbury near to the Welsh Marches where he was then executed. He was dragged attached to a horse’s tail and then hanged alive before being revived and then disemboweled, eviscerated, and he was forced to watch his entrails being burned in front of him for sacrilege in committing his

crimes in the week of Easter. After this, his body was cut into quarters for plotting to kill the king and his remains were sent to different parts of England to be displayed as a gory reminder to the people to fall into line. His right arm was sent to York, left arm sent to Bristol, right leg to Northampton, and left leg to Hereford with his head placed on a spear at the Tower of London.

William Wallace in 1305, the Scottish knight and military leader classed as Braveheart, was also executed in London following his capture in a similar way and he was forced to wear a crown of laurel leaves as he was drawn through London to Smithfield where he encountered the brutal punishment. Further executions in this manner occurred during the medieval period, but treason had not officially been outlined in law until the Treason Act 1351 which was passed by Edward III.

This claimed that a monarch’s right to rule was absolute and that any questioning of this was seen as treason. It was also the monarch’s duty to protect their throne and lands and petty treason was also introduced which outlined offenses such as killing a lord or a master, and men found guilty of petty treason were drawn and hanged, and women were also burned at the stake.

But, it was high treason which was deemed the most serious offense. The Treason Act said that anyone was committing high treason if they committed a number of different offenses. These were: compassing or imagining the death of a king, his wife, or eldest son and heir, violating the king’s wife, his eldest daughter if she were unmarried, or the wife of his eldest son or heir, levying war against the king and his realm, adhering to the king’s enemies in his realm, giving them aid and comfort in his realm or elsewhere,

counterfeiting the Great Seal or Privy Seal or the king’s coinage, knowingly importing counterfeit money and killing the chancellor, treasurer, or one of the king’s justices whilst performing their offices. With this, hanging, drawing, and quartering was seen as a standard sentence for these offenses. The execution of the third Duke of Buckingham outlined his sentence in brutal fashion.

He was executed in May 1521, and it was said he would be laid on a hurdle and so drawn to the place of execution, and there to be hanged, cut down alive, your members to be cut off and cast in a fire, your bowels burned before you, your head smited off, and your body quartered and divided at the king’s will, and God may have mercy on your soul.

During certain executions which featured a very angry crowd, they would often get involved in the killing process and shaming process. William Wallace was whipped and attacked by the crowd with rotten food and rubbish was thrown at him, and a priest, Thomas Pilchard, who was executed for being a Catholic priest, it was said at the time, was barely alive when he reached his execution before he was hanged, drawn, and quartered.

After the king’s commission and the sentence of death had been read out, the crowd were then asked to move back from the scaffold where the brutal practice was performed. Sometimes executioners or officials would ask questions to get the condemned person, following their drawing, to confess to their treason.

They were sometimes allowed to speak to the crowd. Often other condemned people would be forced to watch others being executed in the same way beforehand. For example, in 1584, priest James Bell was forced to watch his friend being quartered. It is debated at what point someone would be dead along the process. Drawing, as mentioned, was very dangerous itself, often resulting in a prisoner’s head being smashed against the ground.

A victim may be conscious at the part of the ordeal where his entrails were burned, shortly before the head was removed and the body cut into four bits. It was said that during the execution of Major General Thomas Harrison, a man who signed the death warrant of King Charles I, that he was alive for several minutes after being hanged.

And then when he was cut open and disemboweled, he then allegedly tried to hit the executioner. And because of this, his head was cut off quicker. During disembowelment, John Houghton, it was said, began to pray before the final part of his ordeal occurred. One of the most famous people to be hanged, drawn, and quartered was Guy Fawkes, one of the leading men involved in the Gunpowder Plot.

Fawkes had been caught guarding the gunpowder in the undercroft of the Houses of Parliament. And after his torture, which involved the rack, he was hanged, drawn, and quartered. However, Fawkes jumped off the scaffold before in one final act of defiance, and it’s claimed broke his neck before the sentence was carried out.

The practice of hanging, drawing, and quartering continued for centuries, and the accounts of them were very brutal. It was abolished in England by the Fourth Witchcraft Act of 1870, just over 150 years ago, which is shocking considering how terrifying the practice was. Hanging and posthumous beheading replaced the old disemboweling and quartering in 1814, but it was still very brutal.

The last hanging, drawing, and quartering was of David Tyrie in 1782. He was a Scotsman who had been caught corresponding with the enemy French. It was said of his execution, “From the time he was put on the sledge till he came to the gibbet, he continued in an unconcerned conversation with the jailer in which he expressed that he thought there were not three better, sounder, or honest hearts in the kingdom than his own, which was going to be burned.

Though there was only one thing which gave him concern, which was that his father was living, and he feared this misfortune would bring gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. He never hung his head the whole time. When arrived at the place of execution, no halter was provided, upon which he smiled and expressed astonishment at the inattention and neglect of his executioners.

And indeed, the business would have been slowed for some time had not a rope and pulley been procured out of a lugger that lay upon the shore. During which time he read several passages in a Bible he carried in his hand. After hanging exactly 22 minutes, he was lowered upon the sledge and his sentence literally put in execution. His head was severed from his body, his heart taken out and burned, his privates cut off, and his body quartered.

He was then put into a coffin and buried amongst the pebbles by the seaside, but no sooner had the officers retired but the sailors dug up the coffin, took out the body, and cut it into a thousand pieces, each one carrying away a piece of his body to show their messmates on board. A more dreadful affecting execution was perhaps never seen.

Hanging, drawing, and quartering was certainly one of the most sadistic execution methods used throughout history. Beheading has been used as a method of execution for millennia, and it was used to punish serious offenders. In ancient Rome and Greece, they considered it an honorable and noble death.

And throughout the Middle Ages in Europe, it was still considered a method of execution for the royalty and the high classes. It was during the French Revolution that it was standardized as a method of execution for any criminal regardless of their class or their wealth. But it was also used by the Japanese during the Second World War.

But one of the most common weapons used to enact the punishment was the axe. Later we will look at swords and other execution machines used to take off a head. But in terms of the axe, if the weapon was sharp and the aim was precise, with the executioner being skilled, then it was considered a quick and painless method of execution.

The skilled axeman was considered skilled if they could take a head off in one quick and swift blow from the axe. But if the axe was blunt and the executioner clumsy, then it could take a number of swings to take a head off. And this was considered a much more painful and distressing experience for the condemned, and also the thousands of people that would come to visit.

Inside the walls of the Tower of London, Robert Devereux, the 2nd Earl of Essex, during the reign of the Tudor Queen Elizabeth the 1st, needed three swings of the axe. And also Mary Queen of Scots had her head struck off, but it took two full swings and then one to sever the final sinews. Another key part of executions using the axe was the block.

Usually a wooden piece of oak that would allow someone to rest their head on it before the axe was swung. For the best success, it required someone to lay rather still and calm, which is surprising considering their death was impending. One example of an execution using axe that did not go well was said. She refused to lay her head on the block or submit to a sentence where she received no trial.

She told the executioner if he would have her head, he must win it in the best way he could. And then shaking her venerable gray locks, she ran about the scaffold, and the executioner followed her with his axe, aiming many fruitless blows at her neck before he was able to give the fatal stroke. Many beheading axes were two-handled axes, which had big blades attached to them.

Some other executioners used smaller weapons that would be quicker when they were swung as they were also lighter. In Britain, the axe was used famously during the Tudor period to take the heads off even queens, but it was also used for hanging, drawing, and quarterings. During the quartering part of the horrific execution, the condemned’s head was usually cut off and then displayed in public on places such as London Bridge to serve as a warning.

But it was used by the Celts in a head-hunting ritual in Britain. It was said they cut off the heads of enemies slain in battle and attach them to the necks of their horses. The blood-stained spoils they hand over to their attendants. They embalm in cedar oil the heads of the most distinguished enemies and preserve them carefully in a chest and display them with pride to strangers.

During the Tudor period, and particularly during the reign of Henry VIII, the axe was used to brutally put down the king’s enemies and even some of his closest friends. It’s estimated that Henry executed 70,000 people during his time on the throne, and many of these were performed by axe. There were many crimes that people could be executed for.

The most famous that attracted execution by axe was treason. The standard sentence for men who were condemned to die for treason was hanging, drawing, and quartering. But the most famous people to face the axe were those who were close to the king, and their sentence was commuted to beheading by axe, which was considered quicker and less painful.

But during Henry VIII’s reign, two of his wives were executed by beheading, but only one faced the axe. Anne Boleyn was executed by sword as Henry saw this as more reliable than the axe, and he brought over a swordsman from France to perform the job. But Catherine Howard, Henry’s fifth wife, would face the commoners’ axe, and she was spared no such kindness.

Inside the Tower of London, which became associated with the axe, on the 13th of February, 1542, the young teenage Catherine came onto the scaffold. Her scaffold was covered in hay to soak up her blood, and she laid her head on the block before quickly her head was struck off. The young girl being condemned for allegedly cheating on the king.

Also, her close friend Jane Boleyn was executed by axe shortly after. And it was noted that the execution of that day performed his job well with no known botches. Jane Boleyn was forced to kneel in the blood of her former mistress. Before this though, there were more high-profile executions carried out by axe.

Another which occurred inside the Tower of London was Margaret Pole, the Countess of Salisbury. Her execution has been described as one of the worst and most disturbing of the Tudor period. Margaret Pole was one of the remaining members of the House of Plantagenet. With her execution, Henry VIII eliminated a woman who did have a claim to the throne.

At the age of 67, she was imprisoned in the Tower of London. On the 27th of May, 1541, she was summoned from her cell as she’d been told she was going to die in the next hour. She claimed she’d been sentenced of no such crime, but there was no scaffold at the Tower of London this time. Instead, inside the Tower, on a courtyard, there was just a low wooden block which was found on the cobbled stone floor.

Margaret was expected to rest her head on it, but she did not go to her death submitting. The elderly lady in front of 150 witnesses refused to go down, and her execution was performed by a wretched and blundering youth who literally hacked her head and shoulders to pieces in the most pitiful manner. As the executioner was not the most skilled, he plunged his axe into her, and she kept turning her head, and this caused a number of issues.

And it’s claimed that it took at least seven swings of the axe to take her head clean off, and some claim more. Another queen to lose her head using axe inside the Tower of London was Lady Jane Grey, who’s referred to as the nine-day queen. Following her short time on the throne, she was imprisoned by Mary I or Bloody Mary.

And following the threat of rebellion, her execution was ordered. But only those who were considered of royalty or immense nobility were allowed an execution by axe within the Tower of London walls. Jane was granted this, and she knelt sadly at the executioner’s feet on Tower Green. Then her head was taken clean off. In terms of how executions by axe went, it followed a similar and traditional procedure.

First, the condemned would be brought to their site of execution, which was usually a public scaffold in a town or somewhere where people could see. Their crimes and their death sentence was read out for everyone to hear before they were handed over to the executioner. The condemned would be allowed to repent for their sins and their crimes.

And there were accounts throughout history where people remained indignant against their crimes until the very end. In high-profile executions, the condemned would hand over a significant amount of money to the executioner. This was done almost as a bribe to the headsman to perform his job well. Over executioners would perform a variety of execution methods, too.

Then they also asked the condemned for their forgiveness before they struck the head off. Following the swing or the swings of the axe, the executioner then held the head aloft to the crowd so that everyone could see. And if it was a high-profile execution, some members of the crowd would dip their handkerchiefs in the blood of the executed.

But there was an executioner who became known for his botching skills with the axe. Jack Ketch is often referred to as history’s worst executioner. And during two executions by axe, he made a horrendous mess of the proceedings. On the 21st of July, 1683, Ketch was in charge of executing William Russell, Lord Russell, a leading member of the Country Party and a rebel in Parliament following the succession of James as a king of England.

Russell had been held inside the Tower of London inside a cell for a few weeks before he was sentenced to death for treason. His execution took place at Lincoln’s Field Inn and was one of the largest sites in London and thousands flocked to watch his high profile execution in the huge public space. But as the public looked on towards the scaffold, Ketch made a terrible mess of the execution of Russell.

He was later forced to make an apology for his accounts and wrote a pamphlet, The Apology of John Ketch Esq. and he claimed he did not depose himself as most suitable and he was interrupted and disrupted whilst taking aim. Russell was beheaded but his execution was not clean. It was said by onlookers, “On that occasion, Ketch wielded the instrument of death either with such sadistically nuanced skill or with such lack of simple dexterity, nobody could tell that the victim suffered horrifically blow after blow, each

excruciating but not itself lethal.” Even amongst the bloodthirsty people of society that attended English beheadings, the gory and bloody display that created such anger that Ketch felt forced to write an apology. But his worst work came when executing James Scott, the Duke of Monmouth. It was said as the Duke approached Ketch on the scaffold, he said, “Here is six guineas for you.

Do not hack me as you did my Lord Russell. I’ve heard you struck him three or four times. My servant will give you some more gold if you do the work well.” It’s not known if Ketch took this as an insult bringing up his poor work but he may have lost focus and his temper. The Duke of Monmouth was then disrobed and he touched the edge of the axe that was in Ketch’s hand and he claimed it was not sharp enough to take his head clean off with one strike.

He was reassured that it would then he placed his his on the executioner’s block. Ketch struck the first blow. It only gave Scott a small wound. He then struggled on the block as the instinct to escape kicked in. Ketch struck again and the job still hadn’t been done. And two further blows continued to James Scott, the Duke of Monmouth’s head and it had not come clean off.

The crowds at this were disgusted and outraged. They were all for witnessing public executions, but demanded it was performed with professionalism and decorum, but this wasn’t. Ketch then saw Scott’s cut neck and it’s claimed he even tried to give up saying, “I cannot do it. My heart has failed me.

” But then he was forced by the Sheriff of London to do so. He told him to take up the axeman and finish. And it took two more swings of the ax to kill the Duke. But then his head was still not severed. So Ketch grabbed a butcher’s knife to cut through the last sinews. As he held the head up of James Scott, he noticed that the crowd were very angry and the guard were forced to usher him to safety as it looked like a riot would break out.

And the crowd would have killed Jack Ketch. Most beheadings using axes were performed on Tower Hill and it was this scaffold that became known as a public beheading spot where executioners chopped heads off of criminals using the weapon. Some of those to meet their end on Tower Hill by ax were Sir Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, Guilford Dudley husband to Lady Jane Grey, George Boleyn the brother of Anne Boleyn and the final one was Simon Fraser the 11th Lord Lovat.

Tower Hill was then abandoned as a site of execution. But there were dozens of countries that carried out executions by ax throughout the years. It was even carried out a couple of times when Hitler was coming into power in Germany in the 1930s, but it was a brutal execution method that’s become one of the most infamous in history.

It was not always the most reliable. It was not always performed by the most skilled axemen. And when this happened, it was rather distressing for crowds to see. Execution by ax, without doubt, has to be one of history’s most brutal execution methods. It was seen as relatively simple and an inexpensive way to carry out a death sentence, requiring only a rope, a beam or gallows, and an executioner.

Yet not all hangings were the same. One of the most notorious techniques was a short drop hanging, a method that produced a slow and often agonizing death. Before the invention of the more humane long drop in the 19th century, this was the standard way to execute people by hanging. Hanging as a punishment dates back thousands of years.

Ancient civilizations, including the Persians, Greeks, and Romans, practiced forms of execution involving suspension by the neck. By the Middle Ages, hanging had become the main method of capital punishment across Europe, especially for crimes like theft, murder, and treason. But the way people were hanged varied greatly.

In medieval and early modern Europe, most hangings were short drop hangings, the term used by later historians to describe the traditional method. Instead of falling from a height, the condemned person was either lifted off the ground or simply dropped from a small stool or cart. This technique was not designed to break the neck.

Instead, it caused death by strangulation as the noose compressed the windpipe and blood vessels. It was slow, cruel, and very public. Short drop hanging worked on a simple principle. The prisoner was suspended by the neck with a rope, usually knotted in a noose. However, unlike the later long drop, which calculated the fall to break the neck instantly, the short drop left the body only slightly lower than before.

The person’s feet might be inches from the ground or even touching it lightly, forcing them to strain upward for air. Typically, the execution went as followed. Firstly, the preparation of the gallows. The gallows for a short drop was basic. Sometimes it was a beam or a tree branch with a rope tied to it. In other cases, permanent wooden gallows stood in town squares.

The executioner placed a noose around the prisoner’s neck, tightening it so it would not slip. Secondly, the drop or removal of support. Instead of a trapdoor and a calculated fall, the condemned stood on a ladder, stool, or in a cart. When the time came, the support was removed by kicking away the stool, pulling the ladder, or driving the cart out from under the prisoner.

This left them hanging, but only slightly lower than before. Then thirdly and finally, strangulation and death. Because there was no significant fall, the neck was not broken. Instead, the prisoner slowly strangled. The rope compressed the airway and jugular veins, cutting off oxygen to the brain. Death could take several minutes, sometimes 10, 15, or even 20 minutes.

During this time, the body convulsed, legs kicked, and hands clawed at the rope. Witnesses often described these scenes as harrowing. For much of history, authorities did not prioritize making executions quick or painless. The point was to punish the criminal and make an example of them. Public executions were intended to deter crime by showing the consequences in the most dramatic way possible.

Short drop hanging achieved this. The condemned often writhed and struggled in full view of the crowd, reinforcing the power of the state. Moreover, it was cheap and simple. No calculations of body weight or rope length were needed. Any executioner could perform it with minimal equipment. Another reason was tradition.

For centuries, hanging had been done in this way, and there was little pressure to change. Many cultures saw execution as a shameful, drawn-out process, rather than a quick and clinical one. Short-drop hanging was rarely a quiet affair. Large crowds gathered to watch, sometimes numbering in the thousands. In England, the area around the Tyburn tree in London became famous for its executions, where several people could be hanged at once.

Witness accounts from the 17th and 18th centuries described prisoners twisting violently, their faces turning purple or black, their tongues protruding. Family members sometimes tried to help their loved ones by pulling down on their legs to speed up death. In some cases, executioners were bribed to do the same.

Despite its brutality, this public theater had a moral dimension in the eyes of the authorities. The condemned was expected to make a final speech, confessing to their crimes, asking for forgiveness, and warning the crowd not to follow in their footsteps. By the early 19th century, reformers began criticizing the barbarity of short-drop hangings.

The idea of making executions more humane gained ground, especially in Britain. In 1866, William Marwood, an English executioner, introduced the long-drop method. The long-drop used a calculated fall based on the prisoner’s weight and physique, designed to break the neck and cause near-instant death. This replaced the slow strangulation of the short-drop.

Over time, it became the standard in Britain and in many other countries. However, in some parts of the world, the short-drop continued well into the 20th century. Even today, there are places where executions by hanging more closely resemble the old short-drop than the scientifically calculated long-drop. Many famous executions were carried out by short drop hanging.

In 1721, the pirate Jack Sheppard was hanged at Tyburn, reportedly struggling for 15 minutes before dying. In the American colonies and later the United States, short drop hangings were common throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries. Even some mass executions used this method. During the Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe in World War II, short drop hangings were carried out in town squares to terrorize local populations.

These hangings were not about swift justice, but about public humiliation and very prolonged suffering. Today, short drop hanging is remembered as one of the more brutal execution methods. It symbolizes the older, more public era of capital punishment, an era where suffering was part of the spectacle. Modern sensibilities, which focus on minimizing pain, make the method seem especially cruel.

Historians studying the practice emphasize how normalized such brutality once was. In a society accustomed to public punishments, floggings, brandings, mutilations, the sight of someone strangling slowly was not shocking, but was rather expected and normal. Short drop hanging was the original form of execution by hanging, used for centuries before the invention of more scientific methods.

It worked not by breaking the neck, but by slow strangulation, causing a drawn-out and public death. It was cheap, simple, and dramatic, and it served the purpose of punishment and deterrence in societies that valued this public spectacle over any form of mercy. Though it has largely been replaced by more calculated methods and scientific ones, its legacy remains as a reminder of how past societies viewed justice and punishment.

Today it stands as an example of how far execution practices have evolved from the slow visible agony of the short drop to the attempts at instant hidden death in more modern times. The right of average of it was given to Halifax allegedly around the time of the Norman conquest of 1066. A law known as the Halifax gibbet law would give the lord of the manor of Wakefield the power to try and execute those criminals who had stolen goods to the value of 13 and 1/2 p or more.

It said, “If a felon be taken within their liberty or precincts of the said forest carrying stolen goods to the value of 13 and 1/2 p, that they shall after three market days of meeting days within the town of Halifax after such as apprehension and being condemned, it shall be taken to the gibbet and there have his head cut off from his body.

” This may have originated around the time of King Henry III who gave many rights to local lords of the manor, John de Warenne. Within Yorkshire itself in 1278, there were 94 different privately owned gibbets and gallows used in the county. Suspected thieves would be kept in custody of the lord of the manor’s bailiff and he would summon a jury of 16 local men who were thought to be the most wealthy and the best reputed from the local townships.

The jury had to decide upon two questions. Were the stolen goods found in the possession of the accused and were they worth at least 13 and 1/2 p? The jury would gather in a room at the bailiff’s house and no oaths would be taken. The jury would just decide guilty or innocent. The law was applied rather forcefully and was aimed to deter the public from stealing.

Before the execution of a condemned person, they would usually kept in prison for three market days and on each of these were placed in the stocks and shown beside the goods they’d stolen. Local people would then administer some justice by throwing and abusing those inside the stocks. After an execution would have taken place, another jury was assembled and would then give a detailed account of the execution.

Interestingly, the punishment would be carried out within the boundary of the forest of Hardwick and the gibbet was only around 500 yards from the boundary line. This meant the condemned person who would have been brought to the gibbet could escape and run around 460 m inside the forest and could then be freed as they could not legally be brought back over the boundary for their punishment.

This happened at least twice when two men cheated the executioner. One would never be seen again, but another would foolishly return back to Halifax and was then captured and executed. The earliest account of a decapitation in Halifax was John of Dalton, who was killed in 1286. However, official records were not kept until after 1538.

Between 1538 and 1650, a number of executions using decapitation took place. It was mostly believed it was for thieves, however, a number of other criminals could have been killed using the Halifax gibbet. It wasn’t certain when the gibbet was first introduced, but before then executions would have taken place using an axe.

The Halifax gibbet was unique in England. It was made up of two 15-ft tall beams of wood joined at the top by a beam. A square wooden block ran in between the grooves and on the bottom of the wood was an axe head which weighed around 7 lb. A rope was attached to the top of the wooden block that would hold the axe over a pulley system.

Interestingly, the axe blade of the Halifax gibbet was never sharpened. The weight of the axe and the heavy blade falling onto the neck of the criminal would then cause the head to be taken clean off. The gibbet could be used by cutting the rope or pulling out the pin that held the rope. Sometimes if a thief had stolen an animal, a cord would be attached to the pin, which could then be attached to an animal stolen or one like it.

The animal would then be driven away and the pin would come out and the blade would then drop. The device was known for being an efficient execution method that at the fall of the axe, the head would then roll. Between the time when records began in Halifax in the area in 1650, a total of 56 men and women were recorded to have been decapitated, mostly assumed killed by the Halifax gibbet.

The final victims of the gibbet were Abraham Wilkinson and Anthony Mitchell. Wilkinson had been caught stealing 16 yards of cloth and 9 yards were found in his possession, which was valued at least 9 shillings. Mitchell, on the other hand, was accused of stealing and selling two horses, one valued at 9 shillings, the other valued at 48 shillings, which was a huge amount of money.

Both of the two were found guilty by their juries and were to be executed on the same day, the 30th of April 1650. In the 19th century, the remains of the Halifax gibbet’s base were discovered and in the area were also the remains of two men’s skeletons who had died from having their heads severed. It’s assumed that these belonged to Wilkinson and Mitchell.

A few accounts of the gibbet would state during the first implementation in 1286 and the last implementation in 1650, approximately 100 people were beheaded. However, due to the uncertain date and installation of the gallows, it’s not possible to accurately determine how many were executed by the Halifax gibbet.

In 1650, the public believed that it was an excessively harsh punishment for a thief. It was said when an execution happened, the person who had found the verdict and the attending clergyman placed themselves on the scaffold with the prisoner. The fourth song was then played around the scaffold on the bagpipes, after which the minister prayed with the prisoner until he received the final stroke.

Oliver Cromwell would stop the use of the Halifax gibbet in 1650, a year after the final executions, and the gibbet was dismantled. It was against Cromwell’s Puritan beliefs that the death penalty should be imposed upon those who were guilty of theft. The site of the gibbet was left neglected for a long time until a full-size non-working replica was erected on the original stone base in 1974.

On this is a blade made from the casing of the original, and a commemorative plaque can be found nearby for those 50-odd people who were known to have been killed by the gibbet. The guillotine in France was seen as a revolutionary device that came out of a need for people to execute thousands very quickly. It was seen as a symbol of the French Revolution.

However, it’s interesting to consider that hundreds of years earlier, the same sort of device could be found within England. Interestingly, also, it did differ from the Halifax gibbet. For example, the use of an axe blade rather than a sharp slanted blade to effectively cut off heads. Even the Nazis would use the guillotine during their reign of terror over Europe, but in a Yorkshire town in England, it would be pioneered and used.

What is harsh though is the strict laws on theft that led to the deaths of dozens at the hands of the gibbet. One person could escape their fate though if they did manage to run off less than a mile towards a boundary, they would escape with their lives. Once again, thanks for watching. To support our channel, please make sure to subscribe, and once again, thank you so much for watching.